


Parallelograms

by thelittledetective (bittersweetdistractor)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullying, Child Abuse, Childhood, Depression, Friendship, Gen, Kid Fic, Kid Mycroft, Kid Sherlock, Non-Graphic Violence, Teenagers, personal headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittersweetdistractor/pseuds/thelittledetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's childhood was not a happy one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parallelograms

**Sherlock is seven** during the first incident.

He has always been smart, a genius even; he has loved the attention he’s gotten from his teachers and classmates. They fawn over him; they laugh and delight in his ridiculous stories and accents. His classmates don’t tease him because they know he’s the smartest, and he knows he is the smartest. If anything, they don’t speak to him. He only has a few friends and when they start to move away or move on to other friends, he sticks as close to them as possible until he has only four, only three, only two, and eventually has none.

Sherlock talks to a few classmates still, the oddball ones who are lonely just as he is, but never truly is their friend. He often takes the lead in play-acting games, forcing them to do what he wants. When they come to his house and ask to see his violin, he refuses to let them hold it until his mother confronts him about it and tells him he is being arrogant and selfish.

He does not go outside during play time, because he gets awful dizziness and headaches. He doesn’t know if he made those up or not. He reads a lot, until his mother starts punishing him by taking away his books. He reads everything he can get his hands on, grown-up science and political magazines, books for his grade level, books of Mycroft’s grade level. He enjoys solving mysteries and learning about everything. He gets bored of his schoolwork easily so finishes it as quickly and efficiently as possible, so that he will have more time to read.

His mother makes him practice the violin every day, sometimes twice a day, until he gets his scales and pieces perfectly. She yells and sometimes hits him until he does. He used to love playing, and now he hates it. He complains to a relative, his mother finds out, and he finally quits playing.

They move in the middle of Sherlock’s fourth year. Sherlock repeats the cycle of having many friends, and then none. His classmates give him a wider berth; he is too intelligent, too intimidating, too _alien_ for them.

After the first incident, when asked why he had done it, Sherlock doesn’t know what he has done or why. He knows what they want him to say and what is actually true, and so he says ‘I don’t know’ and leaves it at that. He is asked many times if it made him feel better, and the answer is always no. He has many long talks with his mother, who does not and cannot understand. In the end, after he apologizes for the hundredth time, she tells him it’s alright and to go play with the other children in the neighborhood, and it isn’t mentioned again.

 **Sherlock is nine** during the second incident. This time he knows exactly what he is doing, but he does not know why. His mother is angry but more curious. He still does not have an answer, and shrugs it off. His parents do not speak to him for three days, but he only forces himself to look like he cares. He resolves never to have a relationship after this, and to never tell anyone about the incidents.

Sherlock changes schools again, and then again. He has now been to five schools. He has not kept in touch with the acquaintances he’s made. He hates moving schools and he finds it difficult to make new friends, but he forces himself to speak to people. He becomes master of the cold, indifferent stare of those used to being alone. Very few people are kind to him, and later many of them say that they were only kind to him out of pity. He promises himself that he will never let himself look pitiful again.

His parents fight many times, loud rows that echo into his room. He hopes they divorce, so at least he won’t have to listen to them fighting. He usually takes his mother’s side. He understands the difference between love and like, and he doesn’t think his father likes him.

 **Sherlock is now eleven** and wants people to like him very badly, but does not meet the criteria made by the ‘popular’ ones. He can feel himself being dragged down by everything and everyone around him. He keeps his views to himself because he knows that his ‘friends’ won’t speak to him because their beliefs are radically different to his. He isn’t sure why he still keeps around them, especially since they only keep tearing his self-esteem down more and more. There is one girl in particular whose goal in life, it seems, is to make him cry every day. He decides he will never again cry in public.

Sherlock is depressed during his pre-teenage years and loathes everything about himself. He hates looking in the mirror. He does not tell his parents even though they worry. He eats very little, sometimes not at all, and throws away the food his mother packs him for lunch. His ‘friends’ don’t say anything about it.

He tries to win the school spelling bee like he did during his final year of elementary school, but he loses. The next two years he wins, but he will always remember that loss.

He finds himself drawn to the oddballs again, but manages to keep himself away so that he will be ‘popular’. The popularity contests he has drawn up in his mind never have him winning. He never becomes ‘popular’.

He wants to get away from people but he wants to stay with them. Sherlock realizes that everyone will die alone and that everyone is alone in the end. This makes him sadder. His only comfort is knowledge and reading. He escapes into others’ worlds so he does not have to deal with his own.

 **Sherlock is now fourteen** and in a different school, a different world from the ones he’s been previously. He likes it here. He is accepted for who he is and how intelligent he is.

The third incident happens a month before he is set to go to France. His parents are understandably furious. His father calls him a disgrace and beats him, but forgives him after only a day.

He goes to France and comes back a changed person. He no longer does things because others want him to, and no longer cares what others think.

His parents fight with each other occasionally, but it’s getting further in between. One year they fight on the day before Christmas, badly, and threaten each other and the children with divorce. Mycroft and he spend the next few days worrying. He will forever hate Christmas.

Mycroft and he start to drift apart, even though Sherlock can still clearly remember them playing ‘peek-a-boo’ and telling each other scary stories.

 **Sherlock is seventeen** , and is depressed again. He wants to kill himself. He doesn’t feel that his intelligence is ever enough. He doesn’t get along with his father and becomes closer to his mother. He makes plans to commit suicide unless he gets a certain score on his GCSE’s. After he takes them, he thinks he did poorly. He hates the world and is irritated by his friends. He plans to commit suicide, but luckily does not until after his results come in – he has scored very, very highly.

Sherlock’s father does not congratulate him because he wasn’t ‘grateful’ to his parents. Sherlock has gone past the point of caring. They confront each other, fight, and make up.

Sherlock will never be proud of his GCSE results.

He realizes that the reason his father and he do not get along is because they are too similar. After this realization, Sherlock tries to become more humble. They like each other more.

 **Sherlock is thirty-two** and is laughing along with his fantastic, brilliant flatmate at a video he has taken of both of them. He no longer minds that people think he’s odd, or that they avoid him. He knows he is intelligent and he is egotistical about it, but John doesn’t seem to mind.

Sherlock continues to do what he wants. He refuses to bow down to society and his family’s expectations. He has taken up the violin again, and plays or has the desire to play it almost constantly. He loves his work and gets bored easily. He realizes that who he was when he was a child is who he is now.

He reads just as much as he did when he was eleven. He speaks with his mother, because she gets anxious otherwise, and sometimes but rarely to his father. He doesn’t speak to Mycroft unless Mycroft comes to him.

Sherlock is much happier than he has been in a long time. He no longer feels as alone. He knows that John will take him as he is, arrogance and all, and that John will be there through the good and bad times.


End file.
